Homage to Juan Padrón

HOMAGE TO JUAN PADRÓN

JUAN PADRÓN TURNS 70! / JUAN PADRÓN IS 70 YEARS OLD!

By Luciano Castillo

Born in Carlos Rojas, Matanzas, on January 29, 1947, his drawing skills are innate. He has never studied the subject, although he graduated with a degree in Art History from the University of Havana. In 1963 I accepted a proposal to collaborate with his cartoons in a magazine for Cuban youth, which he then extended to four comic books and created his first characters: the samurai Kashibashi and the extraterrestrial Barzum. The humoristic addendum The sable of the daily Juventud Rebelde revealed the preferred aspect of his imagination: black humor, which inspired numerous jokes featuring executioners and vampires; He did not suspect then that they would make their way into the streets of Havana in the 1930s in a delirious feature film. The full command of lines and detailed backgrounds, permitted in 1970 in the weekly children’s Pioneer to arise out of his hands an iconic character who would conquer all: Elpidio Valdes, to witty mambí fighting against Spanish colonialism.

Padron trained as a table cameraman in animation before His embattled Manbi jump, machete in hand, on his horse Palmiche, into the pages of Pioneer to the screen in an adventure of Elpidio Valdés (1974), the beginning of His work in ICAIC and to Series of short films. He made the first animated feature in the history of Cuban cinema: Elpidio Valdés (1979). Their exchanges with children affected the complexity of the scripts and the elevation of the level of the jokes. He created other shorts such as N’Vula or Viva Papi!

In 1980 I conceived of the hilarious cartoon series for adults Filminutos Which was followed by the Equally successful Quinoscopios (1985), When the Argentine cartoonist Joaquín Lavado (Quino), discovered Padron and his team as the right people to capture the line and the psychology Of each character, and, at the same time, how they could enrich them in animation, in a mutually fruitful bond. The project became a feature film with the most famous character Quino in Mafalda (1994). For Elpidio Valdés against dollar and cannon (1983), his second feature, Padrón made 12 thousand drawings and for Vampiros in Havana! (1985), another 10 thousand, in which he debugged the design of mouths, faces, hands, and feet.

One of the virtues of Padroncito is the versatility to approach any subject with different gradations of humor and an unmistakable style and rhythm. For him, “to make comic is to make movies and vice versa”. His desire for historical accuracy led him to collect as much data as I did in Their research, Which bore fruit in The Book of Mambi (1976) and enabled him to Also be appointed advisor for military issues in Jose Massip’s film Baraguá (1986). The TV series in six chapters more was lost in Cuba (1995) originated the third feature acerca veteran Elpidio Valdés: Against the Eagle and the Lion (1996), Also co-produced With Spain, Which Then lead him to Participate in More vampires The Havana (2003). In 2008 he received the National Film Award.